The "ounce of prevention" must first be considered in this case.
1. All who can should keep in the shade during the extreme heat of the
summer days. You who must "bear the heat and burden of the day" may not be
able always to avoid the direct rays of the scorching sun. Wide-rimmed
palm or straw hats should be worn, and when the noonday sun pours down its
sultry beams, wet the hair, or keep a green leaf, or wet handkerchief, in
your hat. This will surely prevent sun-stroke, by the evaporation of
moisture. If away in the field, swinging the scythe, or with spade
levelling the "everlasting hills," and no water is near, place some green
grass or damp earth in the hat,--any way to avoid sun-stroke and sudden
death!
2. You will see, every summer, a paragraph in the newspapers recommending
the application of ice to the head in case of threatened sun-stroke, or
after sun-stroke. Do not believe all you see in the papers. Just sit down
and reason a moment. Think of the great, extreme transition from the
powerful heat of the sun's rays on the brain to that of the application of
_ice_! It requires but little thought to convince one that the extreme
contrast must give such a shock to the brain (or blood therein) as nature
cannot resist. Did you ever know a patient to recover from sun-stroke when
ice had been applied to his head? _I think not._
I have known one to recover from warm, moist applications. Let the head be
kept wet (moist) with tepid water, and covered over by a dry cloth. He
cannot swallow. Do not choke him by villanous whiskey poured into the
mouth. Having placed him in a warm bed, removed his clothes, and made him
comfortable, send for a physician.
"ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN."
Yes, and every family should be prepared for them.
1. As a remedy against fatal results, in severe cases, and for deliverance
from pain, even in smaller accidents, every family should keep in the
house an ounce bottle of tincture of arnica, the cost of which is
trifling. Keep it well labelled, and out of the reach of children. To
drink it is injurious.
2. For a bruise, or any injury, put half a teaspoonful of the arnica into
a teacupful of tepid water, and bathe tenderly the wound. Then wet a cloth
in the liquid, bind it on with a dry cloth outside to exclude the air.
When dry, if pain or tenderness remains, renew the application. This will
soon reduce any "bump" on your little ones' heads, except a real
phrenological "bump." A woman once brought a boy to my office, to have me
give her some "liniment for a bad bump on the child's head," showing me
the place.
"Madam," I said, "I think a considerable persuasion, with plenty of
patient kindness, will do more than medicine to reduce that bump. It is
called, by phrenologists, 'firmness.' By the development, I should judge
that the boy was very stubborn."
3. For burns and scalds, keep in the house a vial of tincture of urtica
urens. Apply it to burns as above directed for wounds. When the smarting
ceases, and the wound is whitish, omit it, and dress the wound with a
little mutton tallow on a linen cloth.
Keep no patent medicines about; then you will be less likely to be dosing
with them. It is hard to tell what are good, and do not make a medical
depot of your stomach to ascertain.
The individual who is continually dabbling in medicines is a perpetual
invalid, from the result of such everlasting dosing.
If you regard the concise, yet sufficient, instructions for preserving
health laid down herein, particularly after noting the hints thrown out
all through the body of the book, you will annually have less and less
occasion for the use of medicines.
When you actually think you require a physician, get the best,--the best
article is the cheapest in the end,--and abide by his counsel. I have told
you of some remarkable characters in the history of medicine; but the harp
and flowing locks of Apollo, the caduceus of Mercury, the staff of
Æsculapius, the hoary beard of Hippocrates, the baton of De Sault, the
three-tailed wig of Atkins, the silken coat and charming address of Dr.
Reynolds, the gay equipage of Hannes, the library of Radcliffe, or the
knowing nods and significant silence of some of the more modern doctors,
will avail nothing in the time of great danger and distress.
It is the truly kind-hearted, humane, and educated physician upon whom you
must depend in your time of need. Seek such. There are yet many; humanity
is not a thing entirely of the past. Who loses faith in humanity has lost
it in God. Do the best your circumstances allow in all things,--
"Angels can no more,"--
receiving all afflictions cheerfully, looking hopefully to God for his
blessing, which faileth not, in all the walks of "this life and in that
which is to come."
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